Minecraft Stronghold Finder
Throw two Eyes of Ender, enter position + angle from F3, and triangulate the stronghold — with a live map plot and Nether coordinates.
Map
How to use (step by step)
- Throw an Eye of Ender (right-click while holding it). It rises, drifts toward the stronghold, then hovers for a moment before dropping or shattering.
- Stand still and put your crosshair dead-center on the floating eye while it hangs in the air. Precision here is everything — a half-degree error is ~9 blocks off per 1,000 blocks of distance.
- Press F3. In the left column you'll see something like this:
XYZ: -217.500 / 68.00000 / 458.500Copy X and Z from the XYZ: line and the highlighted first number from the Facing: line — that's your angle (yaw). The second number (12.6 here) is pitch; ignore it. Or skip all of that: press F3+C and paste the whole thing into the paste box above.
Block: -218 68 458
Chunk: 14 4 10 in -14 4 28
Facing: south (Towards positive Z) (-42.1 / 12.6) - Enter it as Throw 1, then travel 200+ blocks sideways — roughly perpendicular to the direction the eye flew — and repeat for Throw 2. The wider the angle between the two sight-lines, the sharper the fix.
- Hit Triangulate. You'll get the estimated stronghold X/Z, the distance and heading from your last throw, Nether tunnel coordinates, and a map of both rays crossing. Add a third throw from another spot to refine the estimate (least-squares fit).
- When you arrive, the portal room is usually within ~100 blocks of the estimate: throw one last eye and dig down where it hovers.
How it works
Each throw defines a ray: your position (X, Z) plus the horizontal direction you were looking. Minecraft's yaw convention is unusual — 0° faces south (+Z), 90° faces west (−X), −90° east (+X), ±180° north (−Z) — so the direction vector is (−sin yaw, +cos yaw) in (X, Z). The stronghold sits where the two rays cross, which the tool solves exactly; with three throws it computes the least-squares point closest to all three sight-lines and reports how tightly they agree.
Because the eye flies toward the stronghold's starting staircase, the triangulated point is where you want to dig — the portal room itself is normally a short corridor away. In vanilla Java worlds, strongholds generate in rings around (0, 0) — the first ring is 1,280–2,816 blocks out — so the tool sanity-checks your result against those rings too.
Accuracy tips
- Use F3+C instead of typing numbers — it captures your exact sub-block position and angle.
- Don't move between throwing and reading F3; the ray starts at your position, not the eye's.
- Wider baseline = better fix. 200 blocks sideways is a minimum; 400–500 is noticeably sharper at long range.
- Rethrow when close. Triangulation gets you to the neighborhood; the last eye on-site pinpoints the staircase.
- Crosshair placement matters more than anything else — pause, line it up on the hovering eye, then read.
FAQ
Which number on the F3 screen do I enter as the angle?
On the Facing line — for example Facing: south (Towards positive Z) (-42.1 / 12.6) — enter the first number of the pair (-42.1). That is your horizontal rotation (yaw). The second number is pitch (up/down) and is not used. Easier still: press F3+C in-game and paste the copied text into a throw's paste box; X, Z and the angle fill in automatically.
Why does it say my throws are too similar?
If both throws point in almost the same direction (less than about 1° apart), the two sight-lines are nearly parallel and their crossing point can't be pinned down — a tiny reading error moves the answer thousands of blocks. Walk 200+ blocks sideways, perpendicular to the eye's flight direction, and throw again so the lines cross at a wider angle.
How accurate is the estimate?
It depends on how precisely you read the angle: an error of 0.5° is roughly 9 blocks of sideways drift per 1,000 blocks of distance. Put your crosshair dead-center on the floating eye, stand still, and use F3+C for exact values. A third throw refines the fix by least-squares. Once you're within ~100 blocks, throw one more eye and dig where it hovers.
Does this work in Bedrock Edition?
No — Bedrock doesn't expose a facing angle (there is no F3 debug screen), so exact triangulation isn't possible there. This tool is for Java Edition. In Bedrock, follow the eye's flight and rethrow every few hundred blocks instead.
What does the "intersection is behind you" warning mean?
The two sight-lines cross at a point that lies opposite to the direction one of the eyes flew — which is impossible for a real stronghold. It almost always means an angle was mistyped, a minus sign was dropped, or X and Z were swapped. Re-read the F3 values and try again.
Why are Nether coordinates shown?
Travelling 1 block in the Nether equals 8 in the Overworld, so the fastest way to a distant stronghold is a Nether tunnel. The tool divides the estimated X and Z by 8 — build a portal, tunnel to those Nether coordinates, and exit through a new portal right on top of the stronghold.